It’s baseball season, and the weapon of choice when assaulting the staff of a congressman is the aluminum bat.
Xuan Kha Tran Pham, 49, was arrested after an attack at Rep. Gerry Connolly’s office in Fairfax, Virginia. Connolly told CNN one staff member was hit in the head, while an intern was hit on the side.
“This morning, an individual entered my District Office armed with a baseball bat and asked for me before committing an act of violence against two members of my staff. The individual is in police custody and both members of my team were transferred to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries,” Connolly said in a statement.
“The thought that someone would take advantage of my staff’s accessibility to commit an act of violence is unconscionable and devastating.”
Attacker Faces Criminal Charges
Pham now faces charges of aggravated malicious wounding and malicious wounding. Capitol Police say it is unclear what motivated the attack.
“At this time, it is not clear what the suspect’s motivation may have been,” USCP said in their statement. “Based on what we know right now, investigators do not have any information that the suspect was known to the USCP.”
But according to an interview Pham’s father gave to CNN, Pham suffers from schizophrenia and has been off his medication for several months.
“He is in a really bad condition,” the father said in an interview. “All day and all night, he mumbles … he talks and looks like he talks with someone in his brain, and suddenly, he is shouting angrily.”
Mental Illness Is Serious
According to the National Institute of Mental health schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. Symptoms can include: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, trouble with thinking and lack of motivation.
Pham’s father said he has tried to get his son help but hasn’t been successful.
Pham was charged in January 2022 in Fairfax with felony assault on a law enforcement officer, several charges of attempted disarmament of a law enforcement officer’s stun gun, and obstructing justice or resisting arrest.
He also filed a lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency alleging the agency is guilty of “wrongfully imprisoning me in a lower perspective based on physics called the book world since 1975,” and “brutally torturing me with a degenerating disability consistently since 1988 till the present from the fourth dimension.”
It is obvious Pham is dealing with serious mental health issues. Mental health is an extremely loaded issue in this country and is used by bad faith political actors for their own nefarious ends.
The richest country in the world should have systems in place to aid its most vulnerable citizens. Mental health should be treated like other serious health conditions. Access to medications and services should not be difficult, and yet here we are.
Violence has no place in a civilized society and yet it’s everywhere and we don’t seem to be addressing the root causes of violence.
People should feel safe within their place of work. But people who are struggling and hurting also need to be seen, heard and given a chance to feel safe as well.
Connolly, a Democrat, represents Virginia’s 11th District and has served in the House since 2009.
